


The Call from the Light

by Zombread



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Autistic Kylo, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Evil Snoke, F/M, M/M, Mentioned Luke Skywalker, Minor Character Death, Musician Hux, Musician Kylo, Past Child Abuse, Punk Kylo, Sick Character, Star Wars AU, Substance Abuse, Survivor Guilt, punk hux
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-10
Packaged: 2018-05-25 04:15:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6179839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zombread/pseuds/Zombread
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hux notices that Kylo’s stopped playing. But when the crowd gasps, he looks over and Kylo is laying prone on the floor. Hux’s blood runs cold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. For the love of music

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, this is the first fic I've ever posted on here. I'm having RavagedbyFandom help me edit this but I just wanted to get this out there. Forgive how rough it is.

Prologue

Leia had always loved music, and especially the piano, although she had never learned. Luke was the composer. He even went to Julliard. But her love for music was no less. She certainly loved to listen. And she played all the records she could of her favorite composers. When she married Han, he gave her a beautiful antique player piano. Leia loved it! She loved changing out the scrolls and watching the keys dance before her. Sometimes Han would even sit down and pretend to play dramatically for her while she laughed until her sides split. She thought she couldn’t possibly be happier. Then she had Ben.

Ben was a delightful child, sweet-tempered and easy to handle. He rarely fussed. Leia hated to leave him, but working as an attorney in a very prominent law firm, she couldn’t afford to leave work for too long. Luckily for them Han’s job as a private contractor left him a little more flexibility. He didn’t always have to be on the job site anymore, and could leave a lot of it up to his large and hairy business partner, Chewie. Leia would often come home from the office to find Han asleep in a chair holding a mostly empty bottle with a sleeping Ben on his chest. 

But something was different about Ben. 

They brought him to the doctor when they noticed. Leia was fiercely determined to help Ben when he was diagnosed. Han just looked worried. Ben was five. They gave him speech therapy. But the thing that really helped center Ben was tapping. Tapping on everything, on his wall at bedtime, on his seatbelt buckle in the car, on the table in as he rocked and stared off into the middle distance. It was Leia that figured it out. She had seen those patterns before. Strange and yet so familiar, he tapped her favorite songs. The Piano. He was playing the piano.

~*~

Kylo loved this part. The suspense. He felt the dread building up in his veins. He fucking hated the smell of this place, an underground room full to the brim with hot sweaty bodies. Meat. He could feel his hands trembling. Hux met his eye and passed him a small bag filled with fine white powder. 

“I gotta piss.” Kylo shouted over the sound of the awful screamo band that was playing before them. He jogged down the little staircase in the back and down the poorly lit hall to a tiny hellhole that this trashy bar called a toilet. He got out his mirror and prepped his lines. He inhaled them quickly. One after another, and felt the euphoria, power, and life crackle through him. 

He always did drugs before a show. It was the only way he could get through the set without freaking out and hurting someone. Usually himself. God, he was so fucked up. He looked at himself in the mirror and splashed his pale face with cold water. “Let’s fucking rock”

Kylo ran back up to his crew just in time for them to stroll on stage and start their set. It’s going to be an easy show tonight. This gig is mostly covers, and if they can they’ll sneak one or two of their own songs into the mix. He starts out on the piano, and his hands are flying over they keys. It’s pretty funny having a pianist in a punk band, but it’s something that sets them apart. He switches to lead guitar and Hux switches to base so Phasma can sing “Cherry Bomb.” About midway through, his head is pounding. He can feel every freaking note ring in his skull, but he gets through it. 

At then end of the song he goes to slip the guitar over his head and his left arm feels leaden and tingly. Fuck. He does not need carpal tunnel this early in life. He shakes his hand, or tries to, but the movement is jerky and awkward. Hux gives him a strange look. “’Mm fffine!” He slurs out. Hux takes the guitar from him and they get ready for the next song. About halfway into their version of “I don’t care” by the Ramones, Kylo’s vision gets a bit blurry in his left eye. He’s pounding the keys but he can barely get his left hand to cooperate and his head is throbbing. God this fucking sucks. 

Hux notices that Kylo’s stopped playing. But when the crowd gasps, he looks over and Kylo is laying prone on the floor. Hux’s blood runs cold. 

He swings his guitar behind him and he can hear someone shouting in the sudden silence, “Call and ambulance! Call a motherfucking ambulance!” He rolls Kylo onto his back, “Kylo! Kylo, babe, come on! Kylo! Fuck!” Hux panics. This isn’t normal. Is he fucking ODing? How much coke did that fucker take?! He feels around in Kylo's pocket. The little baggie is more than half full. He stuffs it into his pocket.

“Phasma! Mitaka! Help me lift him. I’m not waiting on a fucking ambulance.” They heft him up and carry him to the band’s van. 

“Mitaka, stay here and pack up our shit.” Hux orders, ”Phasma, I need you to drive us to the hospital. “ Then he climbs into the van next to Kylo and looks back. “NOW!” he shouts and slams the sliding door shut. He holds Kylo in his arms and braces himself for the ride. Phasma's talking to someone on the phone, but Hux isn't really listening. He's focused on Kylo's pale face and shallow breaths. 

They make it to the hospital in pretty good time. Phasma, apparently called ahead on the drive over. Once they get to the ER, the hospital staff takes over. Hux's eyes glaze over as he watches helplessly. He can feel his eyes tearing up and he forces himself to focus on the name tag of one of the hospital staff. Poe. He wonders absently if it's a first or last name. They load Kylo onto a stretcher. 

“We were doing a show, and I’m pretty sure he did coke beforehand, and he passed out halfway though. His name is Kylo.” Hux rambles. The nurses all share a bitter look as they assess their new paitient. Hux follows as closely as he can answering as many pertinent questions as he’s able until they take Kylo through the swinging doors.

Phasma, in an unusually sentimental moment, wraps and arm around Hux’s shoulders. It’s then that Hux notices he”s trembling. “Come on, Hux,” she says sadly, “Let’s go. We’ve done what we can. He’s in good hands now.”  
Hux nods and stumbles back to the van.


	2. The nightmare chair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hello, is this Leia Organa? I’m Calling from San Francisco General Hospital about your son, Ben Solo.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for the Kudos and the comments guys. Here is the next chapter. Thanks to RavagedbyFandom for being my beta!

Hux sits in a pink pleather chair surrounded by germy, wrinkled tabloids that are at least five months old, and stares angrily at the waiting room wall. It took him an hour and a half to just find out where they took Kylo. He glares at the nurse guarding the entrance to the ward like some dragon guarding her lair. “Ben,” they’re calling him. Ben Solo. No wonder they had no patients admitted under the name Kylo Ren.

When Kylo is better, Hux is going to strangle him. How dare he not tell him his legal name. It’s not even embarrassing! What is embarrassing is losing your shit at 1 in the morning because you brought your ODing boyfriend into the emergency room, and then returned an hour and a half later to be told there is no patient record under that name.

Hux grumbles to himself quietly, “Bad sign when you don’t even know your boyfriend’s real name, right?”

Thank god that nurse from the ER happened to pass by. Poe. He verified with the hospital staff that Hux was the one that brought the patient in, and admitted candidly that because of his quick response Hux may have saved his friend’s life. Poe lead him to the waiting room for the Intensive Care Unit and tried to get him in to see “Ben,” but the middle aged nurse was stone faced and unmovable.

So Hux resigned himself to waiting in the sad little room that smells of stale coffee, disinfectant, and stress; where other people are dealing with their own personal trials as their family members and loved ones’ lives hang heavy over their heads.

He wishes Phasma could be here. She’s great at staring blankly into space and calmly ignoring everyone around her, but Mitaka is apparently terrified of hospitals and ended up having a panic attack, so she’s trying to keep him calm back at the hotel. Hux may have gotten the better end of the deal.

Hux sighs, and wipes his hands over his face. He looks over at the nurse again. He didn’t even get a chance to claim he was a family member like they do in the movies. What member of a family doesn’t know someone’s real name? What kind of boyfriend doesn’t know someone’s real name?! He’s going to strangle Kylo, he really is. The most Poe got to tell him is that Kylo is alive and stable, but not conscious yet. Hux settles into his pink pleather hell and prepares to wait. Good thing Phasma had the sense to get him to change into something comfortable back at their hotel.

~*~

Leia woke with a start as her cell phone started blaring. She checked the screen: 1:10 AM. Unknown Number.  
“Hello, this is Judge Organa,” Leia muttered drowsily into the phone. 

“Hello, is this Leia Organa? This is Dr. Poe Dameron, I’m Calling from San Francisco General Hospital about your son, Ben Solo.”

Leia can feel her chest tighten. Fully awake now, she sits up in bed and asks frantically, “Is he alright?! Oh my god, of course he isn’t alright because you’re calling me. Oh, please tell me he isn’t dead!”

“No, ma’am, he’s just been admitted into our ER. It seems he may have suffered a stroke while under the influence of narcotics. He’s being transferred to our Intensive Care Unit and will be held there for observation for three days. He hasn’t regained consciousness yet, but from the CT scans we think we caught it in time.”

Leia gave a relieved sigh. “I’ll be on the next flight up. Thank you for calling me.” She hung up and sat on the edge of her bed trying to relearn how to breathe.

~*~

Hux awoke uncomfortably cramped as Poe nudged his shoulder. “Here, I brought you real coffee.”

Hux grunted, took the cup, and tried to make his neck work like it used to before the pink nightmare chair came into his life.

“How’re you holdin’ up?” Poe asks gently.

Hux glares up at him. “Why are you here? Do you follow up with every person you help? Because that sounds exhausting, and it sounds like you need to get a new hobby.”

Poe laughs softly. “Man, you really don’t pull your punches. Okay, no, I don’t check in with everyone, but you look like you could use a friendly face, and I happen to be on my break.”

Hux sighs and snips in frustration, “Well can you at least make yourself useful and tell me how my boyfriend is?”

Poe sits down in his own pink monstrosity across from Hux and leans forward. “Okay, so you didn’t hear this from me, but it looks like he had a stroke.”

“How could he have a stroke?! He’s not even thirty yet!” Hux demands in a hushed tone.

Poe looks sympathetically at Hux, and Hux hates him so fucking much. “Cocaine use can result in the constriction of blood vessels, increased heart rate, body temperature and blood pressure, and decreased oxygen supply to the brain. With all of these factors together, the risk of stroke is high within the next 24 hours; especially if the individual is a habitual user.”

Hux’s face pales and he can feel his heart rate spike as Poe continues solemnly, “Luckily, you got him here within the 4-hour window so we were able to treat it before large parts of his brain died. However, he hasn’t woken up yet, so we can’t really be sure of the extent of the damage.”

Hux lets out a breath he didn’t even realize he was holding. His skin feels cold and clammy. He did this. He is the reason Kylo is in this fucking place. Why the fuck did he give Kylo that shit?! He could feel his eyes burning with the urge to cry, but refuses to allow himself to break in front of a stranger. He clenches his teeth and refocuses on his breathing. 

Poe rests a gentle hand on Hux’s shoulder and asks kindly, “Do you know about what time he may have ingested the narcotics? Or what time he collapsed? And do you know how much he may have consumed, and if his consumption was regular?”

Hux stills his spiraling self-hatred for the moment. He can break down later, in a stall in the men’s room. He focuses on answering, “We were about to go onstage. We’re in a band. Our set must have started around 10. Kylo, I mean Ben, he sometimes gets really anxious before a show, so he’ll do a line or two beforehand to help him feel calm, or whatever. We were just over halfway done when he collapsed, so it must have been around 11 or 11:30.”

Poe pats his shoulder gently. “Okay, that really helps. I’ll let the staff know. Unfortunately, he’s going to have a hard time recovering since he’ll have to go through withdrawal at the same time.” Poe stands. “If you think of anything else just talk to the receptionist and she’ll make sure I get any messages. I’m sorry to leave you like this, but I’ve got to get back to my rounds.”

Hux nods distractedly as Poe moves away. His eyes are unfocused and he can’t really hear anything over the sound of his own blood rushing around his body. His palms are sweaty and ice cold. He gets up and woodenly makes his way to the men’s room he saw on the way up here a couple of hours ago. 

He regrets changing clothes now. He doesn’t have anything on him right now except his wallet, no pills, no coke, nothing, and he can feel his panic rising. He may have killed Kylo. How could he have known this would happen? Hux has battled his anxiety disorder for years by self medicating with whatever was nearby, but cocaine was his favorite. He just used it to take the edge off. He didn’t even need it every day. He and Kylo had been doing so well lately. Barely using at all. Just when it got bad and it felt like you’d drown in your own fear without something to blur the edges. 

Hux fell against the men’s room door and used his momentum to shove it open. The smell of old urine and sickeningly sweet air freshener assaulted his nose and made his stomach roil. But the bathroom was blissfully empty. Which was great, because if there is anything worse than falling apart, it’s having other people witness it. His father certainly drilled that into him. If you want to cry, go to your room and cry. No one wants to watch you. He moved to the sink to splash water on his face. He looks up in the mirror but all he can see is Kylo’s pale face and the way he laid on that dirty stage in a crumpled heap. His stomach felt like he had swallowed lead.

Hux had just enough time to spin around before he was collapsing in front of the nearest toilet, heaving up the acrid coffee he just drank and whatever was left in his stomach. He took big gasping breaths as he shivered and tried not to think what he might be kneeling in, as he started sobbing into the toilet seat.

Hux emerged from the bathroom a little while later red eyed and cleaned up as best he could manage with the pink cherry scented soap he found under the sink. He was coming back into the waiting area to reclaim his seat when he heard the woman standing by the nurse’s station say, “My name is Leia Organa, I’m here to see my son, Ben.”


End file.
